New Kids On The Block

Teen Girls Keep Up With Kids

March 29, 1991|By JOSEPH PRYWELLER Staff Writer

At Epes Elementary in Newport News, there's a musical boundary line dividing the boys and the girls.

The boys try to dance like M.C. Hammer and go around spouting the title of a Vanilla Ice song, "Ice, Ice, Baby." The girls hang tough with New Kids on the Block. "The boys like to laugh at us all the time," said Stefanie Haskins, a second-grader there. "They think it's funny that we sing `Step By Step, Oh baby' and wear our T-shirts. The boys don't like it because the New Kids like to show off."

Little girls understand all about New Kids on the Block. Many classmates have crushes on a favorite New Kid, Stefanie said. They dream of meeting the boys in the band someday. They'll be out in force at the New Kids' near sell-out shows at Norfolk Scope Saturday and Sunday.

"You have a generation of young American kids ready to rock 'n' roll for the first time," said Paul Grushkin, national sales manager for Winterland Productions, the San Francisco company that markets official New Kids on the Block merchandise. "Where do we want them to get their start if not with some really nice music?"

New Kids fans constantly light up the band's three 1-900 telephone lines - one for an "intimate, sizzling secret talk" with a Kid, one for a greeting and wake-up call, and one to leave a telephone "love note" on an answering machine. About 100,000 calls a week jam the phones.

Then there are the posters, the lifelike dolls, the shoes and shoelaces, the bubblegum trading cards, the jewelry, the sleeping bags, the books, the board games, the hats and the T-shirts.

More than $400 million worth of New Kids merchandise has been sold in about 18 months, Grushkin said. Add concert grosses and record sales, and the band has earned more than $850 million in that short time, he added.

That's a lot of lunch money. But not to a young girl who recently redirected her affections from teddy bears to her favorite New Kid and tape of the group.

"I'd give all my allowance just for a date with Joey," said 8-year-old Natasja Villali of Newport News. "I got a New Kids game for Christmas last year. I'd like to get Joey in person this year."

Both Stefanie and Natasja have scrapbooks crammed with pictures of the New Kids snipped from teen magazines. They play the "Step By Step" album over and over and dance to it. They have their own nicknames for each band member.

Her mother, Sue Haskins, said she doesn't mind the adoration bestowed on the New Kids. After all, she remembers her own childhood crush on David Cassidy. At least the New Kids project a clean image, she said.

"They liked Madonna for a short time, and I was a little more uneasy with that," Haskins said. "I think mothers can relate in general to the fantasies their daughters have at that age. It's normal."

The group become the first band ever to have their own department at JCPenney stores, Grushkin said. Other major department stores followed suit.

"Never before has a band been such a success at retail," said Grushkin, whose company also sells merchandise for such acts as Bruce Springsteen and M.C. Hammer. "For the first time, the malls became a center for band T-shirts and accessories. It became an economic juggernaut."

But fickle fans are starting to be distracted from their devotions: Managers at area record outlets, book stores and toy shops said they don't sell New Kids items at the pace they once did. The group's latest album, "No More Games/The Remix Album," hasn't been a huge money maker.

"New Kid sales are almost totally non-existent now," said Scott Glasgow, manager of The Sound Shop record store at Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News. "We might sell the odd item now and then, but it's not like it used to be."

Glasgow said that might change when the next studio album is released. The fans keep coming to the concerts and wearing their old T-shirts. But even Grushkin, who works with the group, said the New Kids probably have peaked in popularity.

"Some unknown will come along next to pull the heartstrings of American kids," Grushkin said. "And, hopefully, we'll be there to sell the merchandise."

TRIVIA

Impress your friends! Blow their minds! Here are little-known facts about the New Kids that will make you the hit of any party! Ready?

1. Before they put out their first album in 1986, the group was called Nynuk. It was pronounced like "Nah-nook," the name of an Eskimo in an old documentary, "Nanook of the North."

The name was thought up by group creator Maurice Starr. But no member of New Kids knows why the band got that name.

2. The name was changed because of a rap song, "New Kids on the Block," that Donnie Wahlberg wrote for the group's self-titled debut album. Columbia Records wanted the band to find a new name anyway.